


Luciscere

by himitsutsubasa



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Astronomy, Chris is the Human Alpha, Derek and Laura are Pack Deputies, Growing Up, M/M, Minor Allison Argent/Isaac Lahey, Peter is a good Alpha, Previous Allison Argent/Scott McCall - Freeform, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1965189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/himitsutsubasa/pseuds/himitsutsubasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It grows light, it is getting light, dawn is coming/breaking, day is breaking." - Oxford Latin Dictionary</p><p>Chris Argent looks to the stars and the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Luciscere

Post-Victoria, Chris was a little bereft. He’d always been monogamous, like the furry, little rodents that Allison was obsessed with all of third grade because “Daddy, they mate for _life_.” He wasn’t quite sure what to do.

And that wasn’t his biggest problem because Allison was what mattered. Allison who broke up with Scott because she was tired of being sidelined by the man she loved. And yeah, he knew that feeling. Hunting had always been Victoria’s love and he’d never tried to take that from her.

He held Allison close and kissed her forehead as old Star Trek reruns played on the television. It was their father-daughter thing on Tuesday nights when it wasn’t a condition to go out and shoot the shit out of targets. Instead, Spock was inspecting a dead man and looking a little displeased, not angry, just displeased. Allison laughed a little at the expression on his face; her tears ran a little heavier into the fabric on Chris’ arm. He pressed a hand to her shoulder and drank his beer. Their big house was a little emptier without the Enterprise and crew.

* * *

“She’s quite something.”

Chris turned to Peter.

Chris didn’t attended the meetings all that often. He hadn’t forgiven Peter for killing Kate, even if his sister was a serial mass murderer, and Peter hadn’t forgiven Chris for hunting his kind. Chris didn’t speak to Deputy Laura, who dominated the pack because Alpha Peter was a hands-off wolf, or Deputy Derek, who seemed to slowly crawl out of his shell and into Stiles’ waiting arms.

Peter interacted with the rest of the pack, acting as the sassy uncle and father character. He was loved by most. Scott was the outlier, still uncomfortable with his new life as a wolf.

Peter stood next to him, smiling proudly as he watched the kids discuss their teachers and assignments.

“She’s an Argent,” Chris replied.

_She will kill you if you get anywhere near her. And if she fears that’s going to mess with pack dynamics, I’ll do it for her._

“She’s your daughter.”

_She’s not Kate because she’s sitting here and eating curly fries. She’s not burning this place to the ground out of spite. I’m not stupid, Argent._

“I’m proud of her.”

_I hope you realize that she is the only reason why I’m here._

“Of course you are.”

_I didn’t expect otherwise._

* * *

Silver. It was the most obvious aspect about them. Metal by name and profession, but still human. Still so human and weak.

Allison let the arrow loose.

 “Daddy, why?”

It slammed into the target with a splintering of wood. It was over a hundred newtons of force compressed into an area less than a millimeter square. Her arrow, straight and true, embedded itself in the center of the target, four centimeters deep. He would have to make note of that and change the type of wood she was shooting into.

Chris aimed at the block of homemade ballistic gel and fired the cartridge into it. The gel absorbed all of the bullets in a small contained area, the red sphere of gel he embedded in the center of each block he made. His own version of target practice.

She looked a little concerned, like she always did when they went into the open air to shoot. The knowledge that they were too far from town for anyone to hear, practicing at night (with the lights on) when no one would dream to run across Argent Field, on a large and therefore safe track of their own property, or licensed to run this outdoor range didn’t seem to dissuade her fear.

“Why what?”

“Why us?” She sat on the log he’d hewn the top off of to make a bench. She slumped there, dropping her bow and pulling her sweater closer. Boots and a knitted sweater, not the best hunting gear. She’d called in the middle of a pack meeting and asked that he drive her home, away, anywhere.

Chris sat down beside her. His gun sat in its holster at his hip, bumping into the wood. She rolled her eyes at the careless treatment of his antique, silver Colt.

“I don’t know.” He flicked out the lights with a tap on his phone, waiting only a second for the signal to reach the sensor in the house behind them, the board that controlled all the electrical functions.

Pin prick stars appeared in the sky. So far from town, with little to no light pollution from neighboring tracts of land being so far away, they could see the whole sky lit up in moments. Swirling glittering stars filled the sky; each one, bright and brilliant and beautiful, met their eyes.

Allison breathed at the sight. It never stopped amazing her. Tonight, though, she sighed.

“They’re all dead.”

Chris looked up.

Brilliant and gone. Just like that. The only people who loved and cherished them were here. Their descendants were here. But the stars were gone, gone like dreams and memories and stories unsung. Gone like the promises whispered and sworn on the stars. Gone like people who were loved and beloved and precious from those who missed them dearly.

“Yeah, they are.”

* * *

He ran into Peter at the store. The wolf was lounging around the vegetable section, which was an obvious surprise since wolves and vegetables were not the norm.

Peter waved a carrot in his face. “What’s up, doc?”

“Children’s TV references?” Chris batted the carrot away. Peter frowned, putting the carrot in his reusable bag.

Chris looked the wolf over. Peter wore a v-neck shirt, with a neck line so deep Chris wondered if werewolves ran hot all the time and so never got cold, and tight, dark-wash jeans. Peter Hale was thirty-something and single, but still father-figure to a pack of teenagers. Chris wondered if his family was the one to take having a biological, nuclear family from Peter.

Peter stared at him. If he knew what ran through Chris’ mind, he didn’t show it, instead smirking and passing Chris a plastic vegetable bag. “Not all of us can spend hours watching Game of Thrones.”

“There are books.”

“Of course you are.”

“Are what?”

Peter laughed and said, almost nonsensically, “You read the books.”

They fell into silence after that, Peter muttering to himself at a level inaudible to anyone but wolves. It made no sense to Chris and things that made no sense and didn’t try to kill him weren’t his problem.

Chris patted Peter’s back, filled his bag with oranges, and left to find the British biscuits Allison loved with her morning tea.

* * *

They weren’t all dead. Not yet, there still were stars in the sky that were alive, though, maybe not for much longer. And, still, some were born. There were millions of them, some with names, some without. Chris charted all those stars, trying to find one that would mean something to them. He couldn’t.

Allison watched him work, as she did her homework. She scribbled away, writing equations he’d never bothered to remember after high school, and he wondered what their futures would look like.

And so he charted stars, and stars, and stars, and stars.

“I like this one.”

She circled one on the star map he printed. It was in the north and so young it was for sale. Allison started scribbling in the margins, names and nicknames and every variation there upon.

He stared at the little blot of black ink that caught her eye and smiled. “A new start.”

Allison paused before writing something in Latin. She went back to her homework with a similar smile on her own face.

“Yeah, a new start.”

* * *

Allison waved her acceptance letter in front of the pack and they fell upon her with congratulations and hugs.

Paris. She’d be going to Paris in the fall to learn architecture on an archery scholarship.

Scott smiled, giving her a bone-crushing hug. Kira and Lydia pressed their lips to Allison’s cheek, one on each side. Malia pulled her into a happy dance that composed of flailing limbs and squeals. Stiles gave her an approving smile and high-five. Derek patted her head. Laura spun her around in a circle. Jackson promised to visit from London. Erica scheduled a makeover for before she left. Boyd simply smiled.

Isaac kissed her with all his might. They would leave together and live together and hopefully live happily ever after. They’d be in love and in Paris.

Chris couldn’t ask for more for his baby girl. Except that she would text him every night and call once a week and let him pester her about everything. And she would do all that anyway because she was his baby girl no matter what.

Laura sidled up beside him and murmured, “He read the books too.”

Chris glanced over at Peter, who was making grand plans to visit and make Allison take him everywhere   worth seeing in Paris. She laughed and laughed and Chris felt a little lighter.

* * *

Chris let the supernatural run its course, let the chips fall as they would.

They had their monsters of the week, some more strange than others. He watched horrible television about brothers going across the country in a vintage car.

They worked around the teenage drama of who would be taking who to prom and what to wear. He helped Isaac pick out a tie and promised him that he may be retired, but his daughter sure wasn’t.

They took tests and planned and wondered if they would live long enough to attend the colleges they were working so hard for. He sat Allison down on a Thursday night and asked if she wanted to study in Paris because his cousin Ariadne still had an apartment there and she could live there if she wanted to.

They somehow came through. They were different people after each event, more scarred, more bitter, more hurt, but still human, to an extent. He didn’t really care for what happened to the supernatural aspect of the Beacon Hills pack, beyond Lydia, who kissed Allison’s cheek like they were sisters in blood as well as war, and Isaac, who gave her something to push against and loved her with all his heart.

Chris counted the stars in the sky from the center of the field and waited for the wind to carry him away.

* * *

Peter turned to Chris as the kids threw their caps in the air.

Summer and then they would be gone: Stiles to Berkeley with Derek following for graduate work, Lydia and Danny to MIT, Jackson to the University of Manchester, Erica and Boyd to Beacon Hills College, Scott to the UC Irvine, Kira and Malia to UCLA, and Isaac and Allison to the University of Paris.

It had been three years of blood and terror and tears, but somehow they had managed to make it.

“So how does it feel to have an empty nest?” The Hale house still had Laura, but she was talking about moving in with her boyfriend and that was practically marriage since he knew about the wolves.

Peter thought for a moment before smiling. “It’s alright. They’ll all come home in the end.”

“You seem optimistic.” And he looked it, dark hair alight with a halo made of sunlight and green-blue eyes drawn into small smiles. He was loose and joyous. He was beautiful.

Peter pressed into Chris’ arm and Chris pressed back with a little more force than necessary. The wolf laughed, turning into Chris’ shoulder to disguise it. Chris wondered when they had gotten so close that this wasn’t a problem. When had he started thinking of himself as the human alpha of Peter’s pack and not just an outsider?

The wolf smirked up at him. “I have reason to be, Chris.”

“You’ve never called me by my first name.” The words tumbled out of his mouth easily. They’d settled into something he hadn’t quite had before. It was domestic, but underneath it was sweeter than sugar and stronger than carbon nano-rods. It was something wild and tame and impossibly improbable that it made him want to laugh with pleasure.

Peter pressed his nose into the junction of Chris’ neck and shoulder, breathing deeply there. Chris tilted his head to the side, letting Peter lean on him as he felt moisture on his shoulder.

The wolf breathed into his ear, wrapping strong arms around his waist.

“I think it’s time for a fresh start.”

* * *

He let up a string of lights and watched as Allison’s eyes lit up in their glow.

“What is this?” She laughed as the kite flew higher and higher taking the Christmas lights with it. It was a cloudy night and the only lights in the sky were the ones he made, and he had thousands of little pinpricks ready at his beck and call. One by one, the strings rose over the slight dip at the west side of their property, filling the night sky.

“The stars are dead,” Chris began. “But, that doesn’t mean anything to us.”

Allison shook her head, tears in her eyes.

“Because we make our own stars.”

Chris sat next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder.

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted a sweet and happy ending in my old style.
> 
> The line "We make our own stars" comes from yuumei's comic [Knite](http://yuumei.deviantart.com/art/Knite-Chapter-1-151132545), an online flash comic that is free to read and absolutely gorgeous.


End file.
